Guest post by Marion Fairweather - Cost of the school day Project Manager, Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) in Scotland.

Many families across Scotland are living on low-incomes and struggling to meet the basic costs of everyday life. Over the past years the cost of living has increased (between 2007- 2015 the price of food increased by 29%) and now over half the children living in poverty are from families where at least one adult in their household is in work- work is no guarantee against poverty.

In Glasgow the Poverty Leadership Panel established a project, delivered by Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, to look at the cost of the school day and to find out how school costs impacted on low-income families. We worked with eight schools (four primary and four secondary schools), speaking to children, teachers and parents listening to their experiences of the ways that costs affect their experience of school. One of the main findings was that school costs, from uniforms, to school lunches to the summer trip, put pressure on families with already stretched budgets and can result in children missing out on valuable opportunities.

It is around issues like cost that Parent Councils (PCs) and Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) can play an invaluable role in raising parents’ concerns with the school and developing solutions to overcome the barriers that cost can create. From speaking to Parent Councils in Glasgow we know that they are doing great work, for example:

• ·         Using money in their budget to provide a Halloween disco for free (which allowed lots of children who might otherwise have not attended to come)
• ·         Running uniform banks providing low-cost new or nearly new uniforms for families
• ·         Giving all children coming into Primary One a school tie (donated by former P7s)

The Cost of the school day report has also made PCs and PTAs stop and reflect on their own practice- thinking of when and how many fundraising events they have and if these risked putting pressure on low-income families. However, while PCs and PTAs really want to take action to reduce the cost of the school day, consulting with parents can be difficult. There is still a lot of stigma around poverty and it can be difficult for parents to admit that they are struggling to cover costs.

Cost of the school day, together with a working group of PCs and PTAs members from across Glasgow schools, are working to develop tools to help PCs and PTAs consult with parents and a bank of good practice ideas to reduce costs and ensure all children can take advantage of the opportunities open to them in school.

For more information about the Cost of the school day and the work we are doing please contact me at Mfairweather@cpagscotland.org.uk or visit our website at http://www.cpag.org.uk/scotland

You may have read worrying article in the Herald this week about the poor state of mental health among Scotland’s teenagers - http://bit.ly/2bMxDjS

Following the release of The Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC), a study by St Andrew’s University, the Scottish Youth Parliament has published a report which described the issue of mental-ill-health in Scottish young people as “our generation’s epidemic.”

The report is sobering, bringing to light the extent to which Scotland’s teenagers are suffering with various mental health issues, with a laundry list of possible causes. Exam stress, pressure from school work and managing expectations, unable to switch of from the pressure created by social media, anxiety about the future, distress caused by the scenes of violence and terror we see in the news every day. Depression, anxiety, self-harm, stress, obsessive compulsive disorder, eating disorders; all of these issues can have unthinkable consequences if ignored, so having access to the right support services is essential.

What’s more concerning than the extent of mental-ill-health in teens is how little support there is for young people, who are starting their adult lives with serious mental health issues. The Scottish Youth Parliament are calling for a review of the existing governmental service – The Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS).

Getting the right help and support can make an enormous difference to the longevity, seriousness and outcome of a period of mental-ill-health. There are a number of charities who offer support services for young people will mental health issues, and a huge wealth of information for parents on how best to support their children through a period of poor mental health.

SAMH – The Scottish Association for Mental Health - https://www.samh.org.uk/

Loads of great resources on their website for understanding mental health and ways to help someone who is struggling with poor mental health. We especially like their article which explains various mental health problems in simple terms. 

Understanding the problem is the first step to solving it! - https://www.samh.org.uk/mental-health-information/mental-health-problems-explained.aspx

YoungMinds - http://www.youngminds.org.uk/for_parents

YoungMinds has a great section dedicated to parents who are concerned about the mental wellbeing of their child or teenager. There is a free helpline, an email support service and guides to help parents cope with looking after the mental wellbeing of a child or young person.

Penumbra - http://www.penumbra.org.uk/services/

Penumbra provide a lot of free or affordable practical mental health support services, such as one-to-one support, issue based group sessions and sessions in schools and communities. They run sessions that are specifically tailored to young people as well. Again, their website provides a wealth of information to help parents understand, and provide the best possible support. http://www.penumbra.org.uk/

Mental Health Foundation - https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/c/children-and-young-people

The Mental Health Foundation provides some advice on how to help your child stay mentally well, and what organisations can help if required.

Finally, if your child or teenager is facing a crisis and in distress, please contact NHS 24 on 111 or your GP directly for immediate help.

Partnership Schools at Webster's High School in Angus

As some of you will know, SPTC is running Partnership Schools Scotland, a pilot project which aims to create and develop partnerships between schools, communities and families to improve outcomes for young people.

Partnership schools have an Action Team for Partnership (ATP) made up of parents and teachers who work together to plan a strategy, events and activities that will build their relationships with families and the local community.

The ATP at Webster’s High School in Kirriemuir, Angus, set a goal for their school to run a charity shop in partnership with pupils, families, school office staff and the local community, to raise funds for the school. Wendy Scott, chair of the ATP at Webster’s, tells us a little bit about how the event worked:

“As one of our Partnership goals we ran a pop up charity shop in one of the towns local to Webster’s. It was a tremendous success not only in the amount of money that we raised - £2360.00! - but it also brought the pupils family, school and community together.

The charity shop was a great way to get parents who would not usually be involved to come along and join in, as we were not asking for money, only items that they no longer needed or used and their time. Because of all the donations, the shop had a great choice of clothing, toys, games, kitchen utensils and books.

One parent commented that she hadn’t been involved with the school or parent council before because she thought they were quite exclusive, but being involved with the charity shop gave her the chance to get to know other parents and she really enjoyed herself.

The pupils enjoyed working with the community, collecting items, stocking the shop and clearing it out again once the week was up. This is something that we would repeat again as it was a great start to our Partnership Schools work.”

The pop-up charity shop is a fantastic example of how a school can make use of its social resources – pupils, families and community partners – to raise funds for the school whilst also building positive relationships.

If you have any examples from your school of great work with families and the community, please share your experience with us in the comments.

Partnership Schools is currently taking place in six local authority areas: Edinburgh, Glasgow, Angus, Perth and Kinross, Falkirk and West Lothian. To find out more, please click here.

Some of you may be familiar with Upstart, to others it may sound like something you do to your car to get it going again. Thankfully this blog isn’t about to do a U-turn and become about motoring.

So – to be clear - Upstart is the title of the campaign to introduce a kindergarten stage for children aged three to seven in Scotland.

What do we mean by kindergarten stage? Basically instead of the formal schooling that we are all familiar with from age five, children aged three to seven will have more opportunities to learn through play (especially outdoors); to develop their spoken language and social skills; and to build sound foundations for academic achievement.

Evidence from around the world shows that children under the age of seven benefit from an approach to education that is about experiences, that supports their all-round physical, emotional, social and cognitive development, rather than pushing them towards early academic achievement. 

You may remember an article we shared on Twitter and Facebook a few weeks ago about schools in Finland: http://bit.ly/29hebN2

In fact, in the most recent review by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), the three most successful nations in terms of academic results were Finland, Estonia and Switzerland. One thing all three have in common? They all have a play-based kindergarten stage for three to seven year-old children.

Such a radical change in how children are educated may seem intimidating, especially if at first glance it seems to postpone academic development. In actuality, the evidence seems to indicate that there is no educational advantage to an early start. Many studies have shown that children who are taught literacy skills from the age of five don’t do any better in the long run than those who start at seven – performance evens out by the time they reach age ten.

Additionally, some research studies have actually linked an early start in formal education and early pressure for academic achievement to social, emotional and mental health problems as children develop into their teens and adulthood.

People often think of play and work or school as being completely different things, but they are really one and the same. Play combines physical and active learning and if it is properly guided, it can help children develop all the skills they will need to be lifelong learners. Music, art, drama, stories, songs and rhymes develop young children’s listening, language, memory and thinking skills, all needed for good literacy.  

Active, creative play develops the problem-solving skills and understanding of concepts and 

ideas needed for maths and science.

Our next Parent’s Voice survey is going to be about Upstart – we want to know what our members know about Upstart and how they feel about its ideas. In the meantime while the survey is being developed, here is some more in depth information about Upstart and the arguments around it:

National Foundation for Educational Research – Compulsoryage of starting school in European Countries 

Upstart Scotland 

New Scientist: Should schooling start at age 7? 

University of Cambridge – School starting age: the evidence 

Hard Evidence: at what age are children ready for school? 

Last week the Supreme Court ruled on the matter of the Named Person provision that is part of the Children and Young People’s Act, passed by Scottish Parliament last year.

The ruling from the Supreme Court shows that the concerns we have held since the legislation was announced were justified. We are not lawyers or civil servants or politicians, we are an organisation committed to effective parental involvement in children’s education, but we could always see that there is a major problem with the Act.

The key thing that has to be in place –or at least building - for good parental involvement, is trust. From our perspective, the Act was an enemy of trust, between parents and their child’s school, health services, social work, police and so on. If information about a family, parent or child can be shared without consent, the inevitable consequence is a breakdown of trust.

We have always recognised that the Named Person idea came from a good place – it is intended to make sure that concerns about a child are addressed early and that there is co-ordination between services. However, if we are asking parents to be partners in their children’s education, they have to trust the other partners to be honest and fair. Sharing potentially sensitive information without permission is not only against the law - as found by the Supreme Court - it is also against what we, and the government with the National Improvement Framework, are trying to achieve.

While we are pleased that the ruling has instructed that the information sharing element of the Act must be changed, we are disappointed that it has taken so long to get here and that the genuine concerns of SPTC – which we have expressed over and over again – have consistently been dismissed and ignored. We have been characterised as the Awkward Squad, fundamentalists, right wing. We’ve even been accused of supporting child abuse. None of this is true.

We care about families and we want children to thrive. We know that sometimes families do not do the best for their children, and we want social workers and other services to be there to support and help children in these situations. We also recognise that sometimes information has to be shared where a child is at risk of harm – this is already in law.

At a time when we know many families are finding it harder to get support for their child, we are worried about the money being spent on a service which, to us, is dysfunctional. We don’t believe that a parent or young person sharing their concerns, health details or any other issue should have to worry that this confidential information could be shared without their permission. It’s that simple.

Sadly, SPTC have not been invited to be involved in clarifying and tightening the legislation. We will await the amendments in hope that what comes out of this is a workable piece of legislation that supports children and families without breaching their rights.

Unbelievable really, but we’re over half way through the summer holidays already in Scotland! We don’t know about you guys, but we’re starting to run out of ideas to keep the little ones constantly entertained. Why can’t we have as much energy as them? So unfair.

Anyway we’ve pulled together some fantastically useful online resources to keep the good times rolling until it’s time to go back to school.

Free! 

One of our favourite words. If the purse strings are starting to feel a little tight, worry not and let this list inspire some adventures without financial strain. 

- VisitScotland -

It’s easy to forget to look to VisitScotland for inspiration because surely it’s mostly a resource for tourists? Wrong! VisitScotland has a massive list of free attractions and days out in all regions of our beautiful country.
www.visitscotland.com/see-do/attractions/free/  

- Edinburgh – Free Festival - 

If you live in or near the city of Edinburgh then you know that August only means one thing – The Edinburgh Festivals! This is fantastic news for parents and families because the Free Festival brings an enormous variety of free children’s shows right to the heart of Scotland’s capital.
www.freefestival.co.uk/ 

Finding a Day Out

There are some great websites with days out for families organised by local area. Using these is a quick and easy way to see what’s around you.

- Kids Day’s Out -

This easy-to-use site makes it simple to find out what free and paid for activities are in your local area.
www.kidsdaysout.co.uk/kids-days-out-scotland.html 

- Day Out with the Kids -

This site is organised by region and then by activity category. This makes it easy to find specific types of activities. www.dayoutwiththekids.co.uk

One off Events

Annoyed that you missed that cake festival or play day? Never let it happen again with these handy feeds that are kept up-to-date with events taking place all over Scotland.

- What’s On Scotland -

www.whatsonscotland.com 

- The List -

www.list.co.uk/events/kids/ 

Vouchers and Offers

There are some attractions where you can make a little saving.
Days Out is a great website which has hundreds of vouchers for attractions all over the country. Definitely worth checking if your destination of choice has a voucher available before you go out, it all adds up!
www.daysout.co.uk/Scotland

Taking the train? Scotrail do Kids Go Free. Travel off-peak any day of the week and up to two children aged 5-15 can travel free with each adult. That’s already a great help but as a bonus, presenting a valid Kids Go Free ticket will earn one child free entry to some of Scotland’s top attractions.
www.scotrail.co.uk/offers/kids-go-free 

Finally, if the weathers a bit rotten, funds and energy are low and you literally cannot face watching Inside Out for the 654th time then Pinterest is a great place to go looking for inspiration. There are thousands of crafty, creative and fun ideas for different games and activities you can do without even leaving the house. Click here to get those creative juices flowing!

If there’s anything you think we missed, any sites or platforms you use to plan your children’s summer calendar or even any exciting events that you’re going to then please share them with us! You can do it in the comments or over on Facebook or Twitter.

Across Scotland, thousands of people such as grandparents, aunts, uncles and family friends care for children because their birth parents are unable to do so for a whole range of possible reasons. If you are looking after a child or young person in this way – full time or most of the time – then you are a kinship carer.

Because kinship care is not what is traditionally understood to be care work, there are an unknown number of kinship carers who do not realise they are entitled to practical and financial support.

Did you know? Kinship carers who are known to the system look after half of all ‘looked after’ children in Scotland.

Terminology: Children in all types of care are sometimes referred to as “looked after” children or young people.

There are a variety of possible reasons for a child to be in kinship care. Some of these are: parental imprisonment, parental drug and alcohol problems, parental mental health issues, bereavement, parental illness or absence, neglect and abuse. Unless there is a clear reason that kinship care wouldn’t be in the child’s best interest, this will be the first option considered for the child. This rule was set out by the Scottish Government in 2007.

The main reason Scottish Government prefers a child to be cared for by family or close friends is the because children already have a relationship with their kin - called secure attachment – which is essential for children’s mental health and emotional wellbeing.

Kinship carers can face a variety of different issues that have a financial or personal impact.

• A disproportionate number of kinship families live in poverty due to the financial pressures of care and because sometimes carers have to reduce or stop work.

• Often children in kinship care have faced early trauma or neglect; have attachment issues and and can be vulnerable. This can  sometimes lead to challenging and disruptive behavior. This can particularly have an effect at school.

• Looked after children statistically don’t do as well in school. Their attendance is lower, they are more likely to be excluded and they do not achieve the same level of qualifications.

When it comes to behaviour and education; raising awareness and encouraging involvement and support is key to improving the experience of looked after children in schools. An understanding of the unique support needs of this group is key to closing the attainment and skills gap for them. Teachers need to be equipped with the skills and practices to improve the abilities of individual children to engage in classroom learning.

The Centre for Excellence for Looked after Children in Scotland (CELCIS) are undertaking research to establish why there is a consistent link between parent and carer involvement and a child’s attainment at school. We know that it works, but once we understand why we can start using it to increase attainment in vulnerable children.

Many kinship carers don’t put themselves  forward in the same way as a parent might, and often don’t get involved with the child’s school except when there are issues. Kinship carers have the same rights to be involved as any birth or adoptive parent, so SPTC’s work with schools and parent groups often looks at how a wider range of parents can carers can be supported and encouraged to get involved.

All families can face challenging times and should be able to access support. On 1 April 2016 new regulations came into force directing local authorities to make safeguarding, supporting and financial assistance available to kinship carers who meet the criteria.

If you think you may be eligible for support there are great online resources that can tell you everything you need to know about kinship care and looked after children. For detailed information about all the help, support and advice that is available to kinship carers check out the following sites:

Children 1st Kinship Care Services – Includes local service information and an online webchat feature.

Citizens Advice Bureau -  Wealth of information online, or you can call or drop into your local CAB for a chat.

Scottish Government – All the information you need about your legal rights and referrals to other services. 

Partnership Schools - what have we learnt?

The first year of Partnership Schools Scotland (PSS) has been full of exciting ideas and activities as well as challenges – for us they are an opportunity to learn and find new ways of approaching the work ahead. 

When there is talk of disengaged parents many people often think of those families who live in deprived areas or have chaotic lives - maybe those living with substance abuse, for example.  But we’ve learned that’s not always the case; there are parents who do not get personally involved with their child’s education but are happy to pay for tutors to provide extra support and then blame the school for not doing their job!

In one school we met parents who were initially very cautious about getting involved with Partnership Schools: they were happy for the school to take the lead as they know best.  After working with PSS, these parents are taking the lead on Golden Time activities and have been successful in implementing a No Smoking rule at the school gates.  It’s been great to see parents growing in confidence and having a sense of achievement.

We’ve also learned that the connection with the School Improvement Plan, a critical part of Partnership Schools, is indeed critical and we’re working hard right now to make sure our teams are working on their plans for next year as part of the improvement planning process.

Our other major piece of learning is that active involvement of the local authority improvement team is an important part of the jigsaw, supporting the schools and helping to keep the focus strong at local level.

You can find out more about Partnership Schools Scotland on our website.

Or you can contact Partnership Development Officer Eleanor Coner at eleanor@sptcinfo

Named Person - why we're opposed

There has been a lot in the papers and elsewhere this last week or two about Named Person, including some good analysis of the issues, but also inevitably some rubbish has been written!

SPTC and a diverse range of other organisations have opposed the introduction of the Named Person. It’s not always been a popular stance but it’s one that we believe is right and reflects the feedback we have had from parents.

We have read all the consultation documents, the various drafts of Guidance, the Bill and its amendments very carefully, but we have been consistently worried about NP. There are a number of reasons for that:

• the place of the child within the context of his or her family is mostly ignored. We believe that leads to a context which sees families as being in deficit or even a risk. This is reflected in the consultation responses from many of the Children’s charities. For the most part they deal with families – and children – who are having difficulties or are in crisis. That is their world view, and understandable, but it is not representative (thank goodness) of the majority of children and families. Most families are trying to raise their children as best they can and have their children’s health and happiness at the top of their priorities.
• it places the state where parents should be. If a school teacher or a health professional has worries about a 15 year old, the first point of contact should be the parent(s) because, legally, they are responsible for that young person. Under NP, the first point of contact will be the health worker or teacher who is the NP.  

Read our news roundup on Named Person

This legislation obliges families to rely on the judgement of every professional to use and share the information they have about a young person or family in a discerning way. That covers the GP who may treat any member of the family, who will be obliged to share information with the NP if they feel it is relevant. Or the school nurse who has a conversation with a teenager, or a youth worker who sees signs of issues. 

We believe there is a fundamental right to confidentiality in a conversation between an individual and their GP, for instance. It should only be where there is clear evidence of potential harm that this confidentiality should be breached, and even then the situation should be explained to those involved.

The new Act also lowers the bar a great deal: where professionals previously were obliged to act where they judged there was risk of harm, we are now in a position where information can be shared – with or without permission – where they have concerns about the child’s wellbeing.  This is so woolly that we are concerned the judgement will too often be to share information ‘just in case’.

The impact of this could well be that families and young people don’t ask for help when they need it, because they don’t want information to be shared. This is particularly true for teenagers of course, where there is already a difficult balance between the rights of the young person and the responsibilities of parent.

Read our survey of parents' opinions on Named Person

A lot of the coverage has focused on the cases over the last few years where children have suffered neglect, abuse or been killed by their parents. The suggestion is that NP will stop these things happening in the future. We believe this is dishonest, firstly because the average head or guidance teacher does not have the time to do this, and also because there is another role – identified in the Guidance but not in the legislation – which has the potential to make a difference:

Where a child needs different services to be co-ordinated to support them or their family (health, social work, housing for instance) they will have a Lead Professional who will be responsible for doing that. According to the Guidance, the NP will hand over the responsibility to this person (except where they also take on the Lead Professional role because they come from the primary service, ie the one that gives the most support).

In each of the tragic cases that keep being highlighted, had the NP scheme been in place, there would have been a Lead Professional whose very difficult job would be to work across authority and health board boundaries if necessary, with a wide range of services, to make sure the child did not slip between the cracks of different services and that each service is actually doing what is required.

It's the Lead Professional who has the potential to make a difference to what happens in the lives of the children whose lives are blighted by parents or other adults who neglect or abuse them, not the Named Person.  In our view the Government should focus its energies on resourcing this role (which is of course another issue, as resources in each and every local authority and public service are under increased pressure due to shrinking budgets).

The government says parents asked for the Named Person as someone who could co-ordinate the various services they need for their child: we would argue that the Lead Professional is the role that meets this need, not the NP.

Find out more about the No To Named Person campaign here

Finally, the process in place to handle complaints is much like the standard complaints process against local authorities. In other words, it is slow, lacks teeth and is deeply unsatisfactory for families. SPTC was asked what kind of complaints process we would like to see: our response was that it should be local, quick and use a dispute resolution rather than a complaints model. The government chose to do the exact opposite.

We know, because families tell us, that local authority complaints processes are slow and unsatisfactory: families are left with a judgement but no real solution (even if they win).  It's a disgrace and against the interests of children and families.

'Success for children and young people - the role of parents and employers' - SPTC Lecture and AGM 2016

Thanks to everyone who attended our AGM and lecture last Tuesday! Your attendance made the event a great success and we enjoyed meeting some new faces as well as letting you know about our plans for the next year. Thanks also to the wonderful Liz Cameron OBE, Chief Executive of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, who delivered a stirring speech on Developing the Young Workforce and what we need to do to help young people in Scotland be the best they can be. And thanks to Joan Mackay, Education Scotland's Assistant Director of Children and Families, who moderated our discussion after the lecture - a discussion that heavily centered around gender issues in education - very appropriate for International Women's Day!

You can listen to the lecture on Radio Edutalk, as well as reading feedback from the event and seeing some photos from the night. 

Feedback from attendees

What more could SPTC do for your Parent Council/Organisation?

• Set a fire under PC’s to act in support of schools
• Provide training/workshops on effective PC organisation and activities
• Focus on citizenship/activism to help challenge injustices, e.g., gender & economics etc.
• Set the educational Agenda, rather than just react to Scottish Government priorities.

What will you take forward with your Parent Council/Organisation?

• Get parents to use their employer/employee role to support the school and young people
• Parents to get involved with local authority and government as well
• Get PC to be more proactive on issues like gender
• Encourage schools to make more connections with local businesses
• Need to continue to look at why gender segregation still exists in 2016.  And take urgent steps to change this.
• Work with Academy Senior Management Team to engage with a wider range of parental voices / opinions using a range of communications techniques.

What did you find useful this evening?

• Scottish Chambers of Commerce vision of working with Developing the Young Workforce
• Hearing about partnerships with parents, business, education etc and the importance of IT in every workplace.

Update on Named Person

There's been lots in the news recently about the Named Person initiative, the Scottish Government’s plan to introduce a single named professional for every child in Scotland. The BBC has this handy guide to the ins and outs of the scheme, including criticisms and concerns of the proposal. 

This week the official challenge against Named Person is being heard at the Supreme Court. The case is being brought by three individuals and the Christian Institute, Family Education Trust, The Young ME Sufferers ("Tymes") Trust and Care (Christian Action Research & Education). You can read more on the BBC website and the Herald Scotland. If you fancy a longer read then Dr Stuart Waiton from the University of Abertay has written an article about what the introduction of Named Person means for parenting in Scotland. Read his piece here. 

As you may know we have been vocal with our concerns about the Named Person. When we surveyed parents in 2013, we found that 74% of the respondents were not happy with the idea of a named person. We still remain concerned about the threats to the human rights of families, to their privacy and also around breaches of data protection laws as confidential information about children and parents is passed between public bodies.

You can read about the work we've done on the Named Person, including our survey and report on our website.

We would strongly welcome your opinions on this topic - whether you view Named Person as a positive or negative development, please let us know what you think! If you don't want your comment to be published then please email at sptc@sptc.info

You can find out more about the No to Named Person Campaign on their website.

Scottish Modern Apprenticeships - what about women in STEM?

A blog post from Talat Yaqoob, Director, Equate Scotland

Scottish Modern Apprenticeship week gives us an opportunity to highlight the fantastic alternative routes into careers that young people have open to them. Often there is an assumption that our young people only have a set route into work; from school to university to a job, but in an ever changing economy and workforce, there is no longer a set way, there are more routes into a successful future than ever before.

Modern Apprenticeships give young people an insight into industry whilst being trained and in the majority of cases (almost 70% for people aged 16-21) pursue a job with the same company after completion. But there are many myths around what modern apprenticeships involve and who they are for. Modern apprenticeships are for everyone, they are not for those less academically able, they are not only for boys and they do not always involve some form of manual labour – modern apprenticeships are as diverse as Scotland’s young people, we should view them as a door to opportunity.

At Equate Scotland we work to support girls and women to pursue and progress in the science, engineering and technology (STEM) industries. Modern apprenticeships are a great way for young women to consider a STEM career, but despite efforts, women are still lagging behind the boys in technology, construction and engineering. In the last 3 months less than 1% of construction apprentices were women.

You might think this isn’t a big deal, maybe women just aren’t interested in science or construction but it’s not that simple. From a young age, girls are given messages to tell them these industries are not for them. From being gifted a toy hoover over a toy tractor, from boys being encouraged to pursue physics in secondary school and girls encouraged to focus on biology, we subconsciously tell them what their ambitions should be. It has been this way for generations. But as the workforce changes, this channelling of ambition is actually cutting young women off to the jobs of tomorrow.

We need 140,000 more engineers in Scotland by 2020 and yet only 8% of engineering students are women. By changing the conversations we have with girls and young women, we can change this and give them the full choice of opportunities they deserve. We can make the most of their talents and ambitions. This is where you as parents are so vital as parents are one of the biggest influencers in a young person’s life! According to a study by Target Jobs in 2014, over half of students stated their parents influenced their subject choices and even more interestingly, 66% of students felt it was right for their parents to discuss choices with them and influence their decisions.

By parents, educators and supporters talking about alternative routes into a careers and particularly, by talking to girls about the possibility of having a science, engineering or technology based career we can change the face of STEM in Scotland and let our daughters know that there is no limit to their ambition.

Talat Yaqoob, Director, Equate Scotland

You can find out more about Modern Apprenticeships and how to get in touch with Equate Scotland on their leaflet for parents

Gathered Together wins ALCUIN award

Al off to Glasgow

Thanks to the kind folk at the European Parents' Association (EPA) we have a new member at SPTC! Al the elephant was given to us as a gift at EPA's annual conference in Luxembourg which you can read more about on their blog.

We were extremely proud to accept the ALCUIN award at the conference for the Gathered Together project; the joint SPTC/BEMIS Scotland project that was launched in 2013. Gathered Together supports parents from Ethnic and Cultural Minorities to become more involved in their children’s education and school communities. The ALCUIN award honours the best educational innovation in Europe and we're pleased that Gathered Together's impact has been recognised. You can read more about the award on our website.

EPA gathers the parents associations in Europe which together represent more than 150 million parents. EPA works in partnership both to represent and give to parents a powerful voice in the development of education policies and decisions at European level.

SPTC and our Partnership Schools Project

Below is a blog from our Executive Director Eileen Prior on our work. This blog also appears in PTA UK - you can read this here

Over recent years in Scotland, we have made ambitious reforms to our curriculum, qualifications, teacher development and professional learning and, parental involvement. 
SPTC’s role as a membership organisation for parent groups, and the only charity in Scotland whose purpose is to support parental involvement in education, has given us a unique perspective on the changes. We work with parents directly – supporting groups in schools as well as providing individual help and advice on the breadth of issues parents deal with around schools and schooling.

We also work at a national level, with government and its agencies, the Scottish Parliament, professional associations and other bodies with an interest in children, families and education, sharing the perspectives of parents and promoting the importance of family involvement in learning.

Our message is that – almost without exception – parents want the best for their children. They want their children to achieve more and go further than they did, but the challenge for many families is to translate this ambition into reality. I see it as part of our role to help parents achieve that reality because the alternative is to squander children’s future and deny their contribution to society.

The work SPTC does is designed to move that agenda forward – and it’s a focus that our education system in Scotland largely supports, both through legislation and policy. This approach is based on the raft of research which demonstrates that children’s outcomes are better when parents or carers are involved in their learning. One of our challenges is a lack of common understanding around what ‘involved in learning’ actually means in and around schools.

In Scotland our local authorities (all 32 of them!) are responsible for running state schools. The Parental Involvement Act of 2006 gives all parents and carers with children at a school the right to create a Parent Council (PC) to represent them and to work with the school staff on their behalf. Most schools have a PC, and most PCs in Scotland’s circa 2500 schools are members of SPTC. 

I believe one of the most important things for parent groups to focus on is the role they play in helping all parents and carers to be involved in the learning and the school community, because it is this which makes a difference to outcomes for our kids, and particularly those who face disadvantage. That’s why we’ve recently started working on a new initiative called Partnership Schools Scotland (PSS).

With funding from Skills Development Scotland (the government agency charged with providing career and training advice) SPTC working to build practice around school, family and community partnership. PSS is based on the work of Dr Joyce Epstein and her team at the Johns Hopkins University, who have developed a model for family and community engagement which we are introducing to school communities in different parts of Scotland. Based on the principles of interdependency and shared endeavour, this work focuses firmly on improving outcomes for young people be tapping into the talents and commitment of all those who have the best interests of children at heart.

There’s a keen interest in the programme here in Scotland – once we have some results to share, we’ll make sure to spread the word!

Partnership Schools: St Francis Primary

Partnership Schools - Glasgow

Case Study 2

This case study is part of our Partnership Schools Project which is a way to form school, family and community partnerships to make things better for young people in school. We're working with staff, parents, pupils and community to form an Action Team for Partnerships, which will develop a one-year action plan. To find out more about Partnership Schools please visit our website.

ST FRANCIS PRIMARY – FEBRUARY 2016

The Action Team at St Francis Primary in the Gorbals have made great progress with Goal 3 Wellbeing with the aim of improving the understanding of food choices on health and wellbeing and improving child/parent relationships.  Their School Gates Team organised Big Cook, Little Cook sessions for families and children which were so successful the team now plan to organise more family cooking classes as an after-school activity.  We loved hearing how children proudly took their fruit flans into classrooms; the other youngsters were soon encouraging their parents to sign up!

The Action Team also plan to run food hygiene courses for families; this not only improves cooking skills for the home but will also give participants a useful qualification.  

If you would like to find out more about Partnership Schools then please contact Eleanor Coner at Eleanor@sptc.info or 0131 474 6199.

Partnership Schools: Friockheim Primary

Partnership Schools - Angus

Case study number 1

This case study is part of our Partnership Schools Project which is a way to form school, family and community partnerships to make things better for young people in school. We're working with staff, parents, pupils and community to form an Action Team for Partnerships, which will develop a one-year action plan. To find out more about Partnership Schools please visit our website.

FRIOCKHEIM PRIMARY – FEBRUARY 2016

Friockheim is a village about 7 miles inland from Arbroath in Angus with a lovely primary school set in grounds packed full of opportunities for outdoor learning and fun.  The Action Team for Partnerships (ATP) at the school felt the outdoor space was not being used to its full potential and so three of their goals aim to improve this.  

The desired result for one of their Learning Goals is to use the school grounds for outdoor learning at least twice per term and to make sure parents have an increased knowledge of using the outdoors to develop numeracy.  The ATP is working with school staff and parents to develop activities to make the grounds “numeracy rich”.  They have researched cheap and adaptable ideas on the Internet and have organised resources for outdoor displays and an outdoor trolley.  


They are currently organising a co-operative numeracy event to take place in May and will plan activities that parents and children can do together at home.  This will be followed up by sending parents outdoor numeracy ideas and information sheets.

Learning outside!

Why not follow Friockheim Primary on Twitter and find out what they're up to?

If you would like to find out more about Partnership Schools then please contact Eleanor Coner at Eleanor@sptc.info or 0131 474 6199.